I have been switching soaps on a daily basis lately. Past 2 days I used IK and could not get the brush to load properly. No tragedy since I went back to the puck for each pass and the shave was fine. Just confounding. I must be getting shaving dementia or something.

(06-30-2012, 10:55 PM)Johnny Wrote: Can't say I've ever had that problem. Give me a brush and a bar of Ivory soap and I will make you lather.

Normally that is the same for me. Heck I get great shaves from Williams and Caswell-Massey. I have used IK in the past with no issue. This was 2 days in a row with 2 different brushes. This was a puck sitting uncovered for about 2 months. I think it's time to go buy canned cream and a cart

As an experiment I wet my thumb and rubbed it in circles around the puck for 30 seconds. No lather and no slick. Like running your thumb across a rubber ball. I have really hard water and there maybe a layer of insoluble stearates incorporated in the top layer from the last time I used it a couple months ago. Will try scrubbing the surface with a toothbrush tommorrow before shaving.

Experimented today. Flipped the puck over and it loaded fine. Scrubbed the "odd" surface with a toothbrush before lathering and it lathered fine. Maybe something, like a cleaning product, got onto the surface and caused an issue. Only the shadow will know.

I have. I have one particular soap (Mike's Natural Soap) that I like a lot. But it's in one of those magnetic Ikea containers, stuck to the inside of my medicine cabinet. I keep forgetting to include it when considering what soap to use. If that goes on for too long, I usually end up with at least one shave w/ it with crummy lather, usually from not enough water.